Sopiko Guramishvili

She earned her last IM norm at the 2011 Nakhchivan Open, during which she defeated Sergey Fedorchuk, a Ukrainian Grandmaster (GM) rated 2662.

[1] Guramishvili first qualified for the World Youth Chess Championships in 2001 in Oropesa del Mar at age ten.

At the former in Budva, Montenegro, she earned a bronze medal with a score of 7/9, tied with Elena Tairova and behind only Anastasia Bodnaruk, having lost to both of them.

[12][13] Guramishvili finished the year with a redeeming performance at the World Youth Chess Championships, which were hosted by her home country in Batumi.

Despite an opening round loss to a much lower-rated player, she recovered to dominate the rest of the under-16 girls' event with wins in nine of her last ten games.

[4] This win was part of a stretch where Georgia won the gold medal in the under-16 girls' division seven out of ten times from 1999 through 2008.

[16] Guramishvili consolidated her 2006 World Championship gold medal with another strong year in 2007, gaining about another 100 rating points and earning her first norm for the Woman Grandmaster (WGM) title.

[19] Guramishvili's first WGM norm came in early September at the Open Internacional D'Escacs de Sants in Barcelona.

[4] At the end of year in Antalya in Turkey, Guramishvili attempted to defend her under-16 girls' world championship, but finished a ½ point behind the four leaders.

[21] One of Guramishvili's biggest achievements in 2008 was qualifying for the Georgian Women's Chess Championship for the first time, finishing in equal second with a score of 6½/9 in the qualification tournament.

[17] Guramishvili earned her third and final WGM norm at her next tournament, the European Individual Women's Chess Championship, and was awarded the title in June at 18 years old.

[29] At the end of the year, Guramishvili was in contention to win the under-18 girls' division at the World Youth Chess Championships, but lost to the eventual winner Olga Girya in the penultimate round and ultimately finished in sixth place.

[30] Although Guramishvili maintained a rating in the low 2300s through the middle of 2011, she continued to progress by attaining all three of her norms for the International Master (IM) title over this span.

[33] In August, Guramishvili participated in the under-20 World Junior Chess Championships in Chotowa in Poland, finishing in eighth place, 2½ points behind the winner Anna Muzychuk.

[34] A month later, she also participated in the women's event at the 2010 World University Chess Championship in Zurich and had a much better result, winning the bronze medal, having finished in joint second with Ljilja Drljević and a ½ point behind the winner Batkhuyagiin Möngöntuul.

[35][36] Guramishvili's best results from late 2010 through the first half of 2011 were at the 2010 Torneo Internacional Femenino Gran Hotel Bali in Spain and the 2011 Nakhchivan Open in Azerbaijan.

She won the former tournament, a ten-player women's round robin, ahead of higher-rated players Alina l'Ami and her compatriot Ana Matnadze.

[44][45] With another score of 6½/11 at the European Individual Women's Chess Championship in March, Guramishvili passed the 2400 rating threshold to earn the IM title at age 21.

[49] One of the few tournaments where she had a sub-par performance and did not gain rating points was at the Georgian Women's Chess Championship, where her score of 6½/11 only put her in joint fourth place.

[50] Her better performances during the year included a career-best score of 7/11 at the European Individual Women's Chess Championship and a joint first-place finish at the Torneo Cerrado Internacional Femenino Ciudad De Linares, where she was runner-up on the tiebreak criteria.

[4] Her biggest tournament during this span was the Women's World Chess Championship, which was played as a 64-player knockout event at the time.

[51][54] In 2015, she was eliminated in the first round by her compatriot Lela Javakhishvili by losing one of the two games in the second set of tiebreaks, played in a 10+10 rapid format.

[57][58][59] In-between competing at the two Women's World Championships, Guramishvili had the two best tournaments of her career by performance rating in 2016.

[45] Giri is a Russian-born Dutch Grandmaster of Russian and Nepalese-Indian[67] descent who has frequently been ranked in the top 10 in the world since 2014, peaking at No.

[75][76] In particular, she and Peter Svidler were the official English language commentators for the 2014 World Chess Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand.

Guramishvili in 2009
Guramishvili at the 2017 Tata Steel Challengers